WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:24.040 This week on the Computer Chronicles, we take you to the Silicon Glen in Scotland. 00:24.040 --> 00:27.960 We'll go to Dundee, home of DNA, the guys who made Lemmings. 00:27.960 --> 00:32.400 We'll see a new screen phone, a telephone that acts like a PC. 00:32.400 --> 00:36.760 We'll see one of the fastest computers in the world trying to solve the problem of traffic 00:36.760 --> 00:38.680 ingestion and pollution. 00:38.680 --> 00:43.800 And we'll take you to the labs where the green laser was developed out of a low-cost CD audio 00:43.800 --> 00:44.800 player. 00:44.800 --> 00:50.080 And to the Scottish Highlands for an innovative program which lets you see 16 different computers 00:50.080 --> 00:52.240 on one PC display. 00:52.240 --> 01:01.560 All this and more on this week's special edition of the Computer Chronicles. 01:01.560 --> 01:06.360 Computer Chronicles is made possible in part by Hewlett Packard Personal Computers, developing 01:06.360 --> 01:14.800 PCs for business. 01:14.800 --> 01:19.040 Additional funding provided by the Software Publishers Association, presenters of the 01:19.040 --> 01:22.840 Codys, the annual excellence in software awards. 01:22.840 --> 01:32.160 Think of a Scotsman and this is the picture that comes to mind, a Highlander in kilts 01:32.160 --> 01:33.160 playing the bagpipes. 01:33.160 --> 01:37.680 But these days, that's mainly tradition, ceremony and history. 01:37.680 --> 01:42.540 Today's Scotsman is just as likely to be wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap and be 01:42.540 --> 01:45.400 running his own software company. 01:45.400 --> 01:50.600 Over here you'll find a really fantastic blend of technical talent and creative talent. 01:50.600 --> 01:55.080 And that goes way back to the education system here. 01:55.080 --> 02:01.160 Specifically we're talking about great programmers at the universities like Edinburgh and Strathclyde 02:01.160 --> 02:05.760 and also alongside that, fantastic artists from places like Duncan of Jordansen Art College 02:05.760 --> 02:09.160 in Dundee, Glasgow Art School and Edinburgh Art School. 02:09.160 --> 02:15.120 Chris VanderKerl founded VIS Interactive Media here in Dundee, Scotland. 02:15.120 --> 02:20.520 VIS started out as a corporate multimedia company but it is now moving ahead full steam 02:20.520 --> 02:23.040 as a dedicated games company. 02:23.040 --> 02:29.400 VIS was inspired by the huge success of its neighbor down the street, VMA Software, the 02:29.400 --> 02:34.560 creators of Lemmings, one of the most successful computer games of all time. 02:34.560 --> 02:40.600 Well essentially that really gave us part of our impetus to know that we could do it. 02:40.600 --> 02:46.000 They pulled in a fantastic deal with BMG Interactive this year and also with Nintendo last year. 02:46.000 --> 02:51.480 Obviously they've got great track records but it proves that you can do it with Scotland, 02:51.480 --> 02:55.400 sorry you can do it from Scotland with the right blend of talents. 02:55.400 --> 03:00.800 VIS is currently working on several new games, pushing the limits of interactive cinema and 03:00.800 --> 03:02.800 high end gameplay. 03:02.800 --> 03:08.240 One of their strategies is to build artificial intelligence into game characters. 03:08.240 --> 03:13.360 So the idea is to take your characters in the game and really give them essentially 03:13.360 --> 03:19.440 an AI personality so they can react to situations by a set of rules, you know, they live life 03:19.440 --> 03:24.360 by a set of rules like we all do and it's how complex a set of rules we can get these 03:24.360 --> 03:26.320 guys in the games to react to. 03:26.320 --> 03:29.400 One of the things that's going to happen in there is when you're working on multiplayer 03:29.400 --> 03:33.200 internet games, it's going to be very difficult to tell whether the character is actually 03:33.200 --> 03:37.360 being controlled by somebody at the other side of the world or they're actually running 03:37.360 --> 03:38.960 off an AI engine. 03:38.960 --> 03:43.960 Why has the United Kingdom and Scotland in particular been so successful in developing 03:43.960 --> 03:45.280 hit games? 03:45.280 --> 03:50.800 Chris says it's due in part to the success of a great game platform in the UK, the Commodore 03:50.800 --> 03:51.800 Amiga. 03:51.800 --> 03:58.160 Right across the road here was the factory where the Sinclair ZX Spectrum got built and 03:58.160 --> 04:03.720 Dundee, it's one of the things why DMA'ers are there today and really essentially why 04:03.720 --> 04:07.960 we're there is these machines were coming hot off the press, we got involved in them 04:07.960 --> 04:08.960 really, really early. 04:08.960 --> 04:13.640 Then these guys migrated up to the Amiga so by the time they were coming to university 04:13.640 --> 04:19.160 they had practical experience of programming a pre-emptive multitasking operating system, 04:19.160 --> 04:25.040 you know, with ASIC, good ASIC graphics chips, you know, the whole works of what's now the 04:25.040 --> 04:28.160 basis of these really hot custom consoles. 04:28.160 --> 04:32.080 So essentially it was tremendous grounding for the programmers that are now working on 04:32.080 --> 04:33.080 games today. 04:33.080 --> 04:38.960 While Chris brings his young enthusiasm to the task of software design, Sir Hugh Smeaton, 04:38.960 --> 04:44.640 founder of Lindbergh Technology, brings decades of work as one of Scotland's most respected 04:44.640 --> 04:46.640 electrical engineers. 04:46.640 --> 04:52.080 Hugh is a man with a mission, to bring intelligent energy management to the home and to bring 04:52.080 --> 04:54.660 interactivity to the phone. 04:54.660 --> 04:59.000 This is a model of Lindbergh's innovative home energy management system. 04:59.000 --> 05:04.680 It uses existing power wiring to network the home and it can do virtually everything from 05:04.680 --> 05:11.520 manage all the home's appliances and energy sources to providing a burglar alarm system. 05:11.520 --> 05:16.740 Lindbergh has also developed the software and firmware for the new Philips Screen Phone. 05:16.740 --> 05:22.240 This is an intelligent phone which brings internet style functionality into your telephone. 05:22.240 --> 05:27.180 The phone has a PC MCIA slot for added memory and software applications. 05:27.180 --> 05:31.960 It also has a smart card slot so that you can download credits to your card from the 05:31.960 --> 05:33.160 phone. 05:33.160 --> 05:36.720 You can monitor your utility bills with the screen phone. 05:36.720 --> 05:39.420 You can order groceries or wine. 05:39.420 --> 05:46.240 And you can even pull out the small keyboard to use it as a full-fledged internet terminal. 05:46.240 --> 05:50.560 Jobber Corporation is another example of Scottish engineering expertise. 05:50.560 --> 05:55.920 The company is actually based in San Diego, but they do their R&D work here in Livingston, 05:55.920 --> 05:56.920 Scotland. 05:56.920 --> 06:03.120 Jobber's specialty is noise cancellation technology as used in consumer products like the Noisebuster, 06:03.120 --> 06:09.160 but also used to design improved microphones for future speech recognition applications. 06:09.160 --> 06:14.200 Jobber's noise cancellation technology reduces background noises and so makes it easier to 06:14.200 --> 06:19.160 use voice communications in an open office environment. 06:19.160 --> 06:23.760 Jobber is located in the Livingston Software Center, a government-sponsored technology 06:23.760 --> 06:30.080 park where start-ups can find some much-needed nurturing during their early difficult period. 06:30.080 --> 06:34.240 In fact, the government of Scotland through various agencies is a major factor in the 06:34.240 --> 06:36.960 growth of the Silicon Glen area. 06:36.960 --> 06:42.000 The government is working hard to shed the old image of kilts, sheet and backpipes in 06:42.000 --> 06:45.520 favor of the new Scottish image of high technology. 06:45.520 --> 06:48.040 And Scotland is not alone in this effort. 06:48.040 --> 06:53.800 Again, in terms of a new inward investment, the United Kingdom benefits us all and there 06:53.800 --> 07:00.080 are cases where we have competed unsuccessfully and lost a big company, let's say, to the 07:00.080 --> 07:01.080 north of England. 07:01.080 --> 07:05.360 Well, our answer to that is good luck to the north of England, but once that company is 07:05.360 --> 07:09.680 there we'll be in trying to get business from it and supply it from Scotland. 07:09.680 --> 07:15.600 Scotland and Ireland are fierce competitors for American technology investment dollars. 07:15.600 --> 07:21.600 They each have scored major victories, Apple and Intel have large installations in Ireland, 07:21.600 --> 07:25.680 but the Scots say Ireland lures companies with big tax breaks. 07:25.680 --> 07:27.480 That is not the Scottish approach. 07:27.480 --> 07:32.320 There's got to be a balancing of what we're prepared to pay for it and what the benefits 07:32.320 --> 07:33.320 are. 07:33.320 --> 07:37.960 And we're confident enough about the infrastructure and the skills and all the other benefits 07:37.960 --> 07:41.900 that Scotland has that we're not seriously concerned about that. 07:41.900 --> 07:47.040 One of Scotland's successes has been the investment made here by Hewlett-Packard, but one of the 07:47.040 --> 07:53.560 Silicon Glen's most aggressive new local start-ups is taking aim at HP and their network management 07:53.560 --> 07:54.560 business. 07:54.560 --> 07:58.480 It's all about processing power and in competitive situations where we've been tested, our processing 07:58.480 --> 08:01.480 power has been proved to be leading edge. 08:01.480 --> 08:05.640 It's all about the ability to handle all the data coming at it. 08:05.640 --> 08:07.440 We're the number one at that. 08:07.440 --> 08:09.720 What we aren't, is we're not number one in sales. 08:09.720 --> 08:14.640 We're just dominated by the large corporates, such as Hewlett-Packard, but we aim to challenge 08:14.640 --> 08:16.560 them in the years to come. 08:16.560 --> 08:21.920 Wilson's company, Solcom, makes a network management system called LanRover. 08:21.920 --> 08:26.680 Solcom claims its product is superior because it is a hardware-software combination that 08:26.680 --> 08:32.320 moves most of the network management and analysis overhead to the LanRover hardware, thus not 08:32.320 --> 08:35.240 slowing down the network itself. 08:35.240 --> 08:40.120 LanRover also monitors routine network activity in a proactive way and alerts the network 08:40.120 --> 08:44.000 manager to possible problems before they occur. 08:44.000 --> 08:51.840 There's no reason why we can't challenge America's in our same language barriers. 08:51.840 --> 08:53.240 There's no language problems. 08:53.240 --> 08:55.840 We have a huge market here that we can tackle. 08:55.840 --> 09:01.240 There's absolutely no reason why a European company can't take on the Americans in the 09:01.240 --> 09:03.240 global networking market. 09:03.240 --> 09:09.200 Solcom is a tiny company compared to large corporate competitors like HP and Cisco, but 09:09.200 --> 09:11.600 they feel this gives them an advantage. 09:11.600 --> 09:14.000 We're lighting our feet. 09:14.000 --> 09:17.280 This market is all about being able to be lighting your feet, seeing a niche, going 09:17.280 --> 09:18.280 for it. 09:18.280 --> 09:21.920 For a corporate to respond to the continual change, it's impossible. 09:21.920 --> 09:23.760 Their mechanisms aren't there. 09:23.760 --> 09:27.800 Small companies and companies that are only lighting their feet in terms of development 09:27.800 --> 09:30.240 are the only way that it can be done. 09:30.240 --> 09:33.680 And that's what we bring to the corporate's count. 09:33.680 --> 09:37.520 Object software technology is another Scottish software startup. 09:37.520 --> 09:43.320 OST was able to develop an innovative object-oriented programming debugger that offers developers 09:43.320 --> 09:46.920 the first real-time object debugging tool. 09:46.920 --> 09:53.720 OST thinks it was able to succeed because it wasn't part of the existing software establishment. 09:53.720 --> 09:56.240 We in some ways started from a fresh start. 09:56.240 --> 10:01.240 We were immersed in objects from an early stage. 10:01.240 --> 10:06.000 And we'd always thought about objects and how they communicated, how they related to 10:06.000 --> 10:10.160 one another, whereas I think a lot of the tool companies that are about just now have 10:10.160 --> 10:14.640 got a legacy of procedural debugging tools, procedural debugging technology. 10:14.640 --> 10:18.880 And it's hard to take that and shift it and move it to a completely different perspective, 10:18.880 --> 10:21.160 a completely different way of viewing systems. 10:21.160 --> 10:24.840 And so I think our fresh start was a big advantage. 10:24.840 --> 10:31.440 OST's product is called Look, and it graphically displays what a C++ program is actually doing 10:31.440 --> 10:32.880 in runtime. 10:32.880 --> 10:37.800 This is a great tool for debugging and for understanding code that comes from other members 10:37.800 --> 10:39.920 of a software development team. 10:39.920 --> 10:45.240 Look graphically displays to developers what their programs are doing at runtime. 10:45.240 --> 10:49.480 Most development tools that are available don't take advantage of the structure that's 10:49.480 --> 10:52.400 inherent in C++ and object programs. 10:52.400 --> 10:57.560 Look takes advantage of that structure to display at runtime the objects in their application, 10:57.560 --> 11:01.920 how the objects communicate, how the objects are related to one another. 11:01.920 --> 11:07.560 And all that information is key for trying to understand the structure of the application, 11:07.560 --> 11:11.360 for trying to find bugs, for trying to understand other team members' code. 11:11.360 --> 11:15.720 And so it's those graphical views, those higher-level views of the application that Look presents 11:15.720 --> 11:16.720 to developers. 11:16.720 --> 11:23.040 OST was facing some major global competitors in the programming tools market and some biases 11:23.040 --> 11:25.440 against a local Scottish company. 11:25.440 --> 11:27.680 But they overcame that. 11:27.680 --> 11:32.320 Even selling into Europe, most European customers tend to expect software tools to come from 11:32.320 --> 11:33.320 the States. 11:33.320 --> 11:36.560 And so in some ways there's a double... there are two problems. 11:36.560 --> 11:40.480 But in our area, the key thing is having a tool that works and is productive and helps 11:40.480 --> 11:41.480 developers. 11:41.480 --> 11:46.240 And if you have a product that really helps the software development process, developers 11:46.240 --> 11:58.400 tend to not worry too much about where it came from. 11:58.400 --> 12:02.240 In the Silicon Valley area, there's UC Berkeley and Stanford. 12:02.240 --> 12:05.920 Along Route 128 in Boston, you've got MIT and Harvard. 12:05.920 --> 12:08.040 It's basically the same story anywhere. 12:08.040 --> 12:13.000 If you're going to build a high-tech industry, you need proximity to great universities. 12:13.000 --> 12:15.640 And here in Scotland, there are plenty of them. 12:15.640 --> 12:22.560 We're looking for a place where there is a plethora of, if you like, brainware. 12:22.560 --> 12:27.400 And it happens to be that in Scotland, the university does in fact produce people with 12:27.400 --> 12:34.400 a very high caliber, people that are very suitable for a dynamic industry like the software 12:34.400 --> 12:36.160 industry. 12:36.160 --> 12:39.280 Adobe has its European headquarters in Scotland. 12:39.280 --> 12:45.520 Adobe is the fourth largest software company in the world, after Microsoft, Lotus and Novell. 12:45.520 --> 12:49.840 It set up shop in Scotland because of its belief that Europe is in some ways a more 12:49.840 --> 12:54.200 important software market for Adobe than the United States. 12:54.200 --> 12:56.080 Europe is important, not just for Adobe. 12:56.080 --> 13:04.320 It should be important to every U.S. software company because Europe indeed is the largest 13:04.320 --> 13:07.880 software trading block at the moment. 13:07.880 --> 13:15.600 The reason for that is Europe has about 370 million people, that's Western Europe alone. 13:15.600 --> 13:23.120 If you add to that the emerging Eastern European market, which is another 400 million people, 13:23.120 --> 13:31.720 the GDP of Europe is 10 percent more than, that's Western Europe however, than the U.S. 13:31.720 --> 13:35.080 It becomes a very attractive market. 13:35.080 --> 13:39.960 Adobe runs all its European service and support out of Scotland and it is taking advantage 13:39.960 --> 13:45.960 of Scottish expertise in artificial intelligence to do some software AI work here for future 13:45.960 --> 13:48.160 Adobe products. 13:48.160 --> 13:54.080 Perhaps the most well-known source of computer science talent in Scotland is Edinburgh University. 13:54.080 --> 13:58.800 After Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh is the third highest ranked university in the United 13:58.800 --> 13:59.800 Kingdom. 13:59.800 --> 14:05.640 It is famous for its work in optics, speech, human-machine interface, artificial intelligence 14:05.640 --> 14:07.560 and parallel processing. 14:07.560 --> 14:14.000 The university has a very broad range of IT or computing activities ranging right from 14:14.000 --> 14:18.600 the design of chips right through to very high-end artificial intelligence applications. 14:18.600 --> 14:23.780 There are about 12 or 15 units within the university, all of which have world-class 14:23.780 --> 14:26.940 reputations in their particular sub-fields. 14:26.940 --> 14:31.960 In fact, the fastest computer in Europe and the third fastest computer in the world is 14:31.960 --> 14:37.920 this Cray T3D at the University of Edinburgh's Parallel Computing Centre. 14:37.920 --> 14:44.280 The T3D uses digital equipment's alpha microprocessors, which are also made here in Scotland. 14:44.280 --> 14:52.680 The Cray supercomputer has 16,384 processors, a maximum theoretical speed of 50 gigaflops 14:52.680 --> 14:55.880 and 212 gigabytes of memory. 14:55.880 --> 15:02.840 Its mass storage is in the terabytes and it uses this robotic storage device from IBM. 15:02.840 --> 15:09.000 The computer uses a 200 kilowatt power supply running at 400 hertz and it has to be liquid 15:09.000 --> 15:11.080 cooled. 15:11.080 --> 15:16.400 With over 16,000 microprocessors, the software challenge is to figure out how to get all 15:16.400 --> 15:20.540 this computing power to communicate and coordinate. 15:20.540 --> 15:26.520 In order to put software onto parallel machines, you have to divide the responsibility for 15:26.520 --> 15:29.560 different parts of the work across processors. 15:29.560 --> 15:33.880 And in doing that, you introduce overheads of synchronization and coordination between 15:33.880 --> 15:35.520 the processors. 15:35.520 --> 15:41.560 And that skill in converting software from a traditional form into a form suitable for 15:41.560 --> 15:46.240 execution on parallel machines is where our core skills lie. 15:46.240 --> 15:50.760 In fact, researchers at the University of Edinburgh have developed a standard for passing 15:50.760 --> 15:55.240 messages among CPUs in a parallel processing supercomputer. 15:55.240 --> 15:58.920 It's called MPI, Message Protocol Interface. 15:58.920 --> 16:04.040 This code sharing standard is now being used at supercomputer centers around the world, 16:04.040 --> 16:09.580 including those in California, Los Alamos, Carnegie Mellon, Ohio and Minnesota. 16:09.580 --> 16:13.420 What the computer scientists at Edinburgh University are doing with their supercomputer 16:13.420 --> 16:15.220 is also leading edge. 16:15.220 --> 16:21.280 They are using their immense processing power to solve a major global problem, traffic congestion 16:21.280 --> 16:22.720 and pollution. 16:22.720 --> 16:28.620 Traditionally, traffic modeling has been done by modeling cars on roads like water flowing 16:28.620 --> 16:29.880 down through a pipe. 16:29.880 --> 16:34.320 Now, the problem with that is that you can't adequately describe what happens when traffic 16:34.320 --> 16:39.400 jams or congestion build up and break up once the jam has cleared. 16:39.400 --> 16:43.680 Now, of course, those are exactly the circumstances you're interested in when you're modeling 16:43.680 --> 16:49.320 traffic because you want to understand how to design your road network to minimize congestion. 16:49.320 --> 16:52.040 You want to understand where pollution is going to happen. 16:52.040 --> 16:56.680 The university is now marketing its traffic analysis software around the world. 16:56.680 --> 17:02.080 The traffic management system was a finalist this year for the Smithsonian Award for Outstanding 17:02.080 --> 17:04.980 New Software Technology. 17:04.980 --> 17:09.360 The artificial intelligence work at Edinburgh University has been so successful that the 17:09.360 --> 17:14.280 department has now spun off a separate company called the Artificial Intelligence Applications 17:14.280 --> 17:15.280 Institute. 17:15.280 --> 17:21.920 AIAI markets its expertise and products to such companies as IBM and Unilever. 17:21.920 --> 17:27.000 The institute is working in three main areas, planning and scheduling, decision support 17:27.000 --> 17:29.100 and knowledge engineering. 17:29.100 --> 17:33.980 The U.S. military used the institute's planning and scheduling systems to manage troops and 17:33.980 --> 17:36.400 supplies during the Gulf War. 17:36.400 --> 17:42.320 The university is one of the few non-domestic vendors doing business with the Pentagon. 17:42.320 --> 17:46.600 Another area of expertise for the Artificial Intelligence Institute is something called 17:46.600 --> 17:51.580 constraint programming, determining how to solve problems within the real world constraints 17:51.580 --> 17:55.380 of production capacity, union rules, et cetera. 17:55.380 --> 17:59.380 This is an example of a program being developed for a mining company which has to deliver 17:59.380 --> 18:05.760 chemicals to road repair sites, a mundane sounding problem but with extraordinary complexities 18:05.760 --> 18:08.820 for efficient planning and scheduling. 18:08.820 --> 18:13.000 The other leading computer research center in Scotland sits just a stone's throw away 18:13.000 --> 18:18.400 from one of Scotland's most famous landmarks, the St. Andrews Golf Course, home of the British 18:18.400 --> 18:19.920 Open. 18:19.920 --> 18:26.080 This is St. Andrews University, a world leader in up to electronics and laser engineering. 18:26.080 --> 18:30.880 The microchip laser group here has developed the world's smallest, lowest cost and most 18:30.880 --> 18:32.800 efficient green laser. 18:32.800 --> 18:39.200 They did it using a common, inexpensive red laser beam from an ordinary CD audio player. 18:39.200 --> 18:43.520 We've now produced something that's very, very much smaller, very much more long lived 18:43.520 --> 18:48.600 and whose production costs will fall drastically as numbers are produced. 18:48.600 --> 18:53.840 So the manufacturing process now is very much easier, the package is very much smaller, 18:53.840 --> 18:57.920 lower cost, higher efficiency, much higher efficiency and altogether a much more usable 18:57.920 --> 18:58.920 product. 18:58.920 --> 19:03.880 The scientists here turned a low class red laser into a scientifically useful green laser 19:03.880 --> 19:09.800 by developing this minute crystal and lens combination that produces an intense, small 19:09.800 --> 19:11.680 wavelength laser beam. 19:11.680 --> 19:16.840 The shorter wavelength green laser is used in critical applications such as circuit board 19:16.840 --> 19:21.600 inspection, biomedical cell marking and drug research. 19:21.600 --> 19:25.560 The smaller, shorter the wavelength, the further into the green and blue you can get, the smaller 19:25.560 --> 19:29.880 the spot you can focus that laser to, so the smaller the object you can see. 19:29.880 --> 19:34.440 And also the microchip laser gives a laser beam that is very, very much better in terms 19:34.440 --> 19:38.400 of spatial quality than that conducted by a laser directly itself. 19:38.400 --> 19:42.480 The next step for the laser group at St. Andrews University is to figure out how to harness 19:42.480 --> 19:48.160 the power of their laser technology to develop the world's first optical computer. 19:48.160 --> 19:53.200 There are significant advantages to moving signals inside a computer with photons rather 19:53.200 --> 19:54.200 than electrons. 19:54.200 --> 19:59.680 In terms of moving the data, then potentially much lower time delay in between boards, much 19:59.680 --> 20:04.640 lower crosstalk potentially, and in many ways it's very much easier to get high speed signals 20:04.640 --> 20:07.040 in optics than it is in electronics. 20:07.040 --> 20:09.320 You haven't got the capacitance there to worry about. 20:09.320 --> 20:13.960 Things travel down optical fibers with remarkably little dispersion, so you can put a short 20:13.960 --> 20:16.220 pulse in one end and get a short pulse out the other end. 20:16.220 --> 20:20.380 You can put your timing pulses from one center point all around your computer very rapidly 20:20.380 --> 20:23.240 with very little time delay for the different components. 20:23.240 --> 20:27.640 As you would expect, St. Andrews University also has a leading mathematics department 20:27.640 --> 20:31.800 where they are using computers to improve the way they teach math. 20:31.800 --> 20:35.120 This is a program developed here called Math Mac Tutor. 20:35.120 --> 20:39.200 It is innovative in that it doesn't really try to teach anything. 20:39.200 --> 20:43.920 Rather it is a mathematics laboratory in which the students can discover basic principles 20:43.920 --> 20:45.840 and rules on their own. 20:45.840 --> 20:50.160 This is an example of the geometry part of the curriculum in which students can discover 20:50.160 --> 20:52.840 the rules of symmetry. 20:52.840 --> 20:57.800 These are the headquarters of Q-Data Information Systems, one of the most unusual software 20:57.800 --> 21:00.220 companies you will ever find. 21:00.220 --> 21:04.800 Their office is in a converted stables in a remote village of the Scottish Highlands 21:04.800 --> 21:08.600 called Evington, somewhere north of Loch Ness. 21:08.600 --> 21:13.240 Here in the middle of nowhere, Ian Clark has done something no other software company could 21:13.240 --> 21:14.760 figure out how to do. 21:14.760 --> 21:20.520 He has created a software program called MARC, an acronym for Multiple Access Remote Control, 21:20.520 --> 21:25.840 that lets you view the activity of up to 16 different computers on one computer display. 21:25.840 --> 21:30.120 We were very surprised to discover that we were the first in the world to actually create 21:30.120 --> 21:31.120 this. 21:31.120 --> 21:32.120 I mean it took us four years. 21:32.120 --> 21:35.760 We were expecting at any time that one of the big companies that were already into the 21:35.760 --> 21:40.280 remote control software would have basically come up with a product that would do something 21:40.280 --> 21:44.240 similar but no, we were the first there and still remain the first. 21:44.240 --> 21:49.120 The MARC software allows up to 16 users to work together, seeing the same screen at the 21:49.120 --> 21:54.720 same time, or it allows a group leader to see the work of all 16 participants on one 21:54.720 --> 21:56.640 master screen. 21:56.640 --> 22:01.200 The software is interconnection independent, meaning some members of the group can be on 22:01.200 --> 22:07.160 ordinary modems, others on ISDN, and others connected via a novel network or through the 22:07.160 --> 22:08.440 internet. 22:08.440 --> 22:12.800 The technology has applications for network management, allowing a network administrator 22:12.800 --> 22:17.160 to actually look at what is on the screen of 16 different clients. 22:17.160 --> 22:21.440 And there are tremendous educational and training applications too. 22:21.440 --> 22:25.320 This is the remote Dingwall Police Station in the Scottish Highlands. 22:25.320 --> 22:30.240 Its headquarters for a police territory that covers one-sixth of the entire land mass of 22:30.240 --> 22:31.920 the United Kingdom. 22:31.920 --> 22:34.560 Distances within this district are immense. 22:34.560 --> 22:40.120 Yet using MARC, a computer trainer, can work with students at 16 different locations, scattered 22:40.120 --> 22:46.480 over hundreds of miles, and actually monitor their work by looking at one computer display. 22:46.480 --> 22:50.920 John Clark lives an idyllic life here in the Scottish Highlands, all the while trying to 22:50.920 --> 22:54.960 compete in the gritty world of the global software market. 22:54.960 --> 22:59.640 He says he hopes that what he is doing will help change some people's minds about what 22:59.640 --> 23:02.440 really goes on in Scotland. 23:02.440 --> 23:07.120 I think sometimes they tend to just see it as a place of dramatic landscapes and hills 23:07.120 --> 23:11.560 and castles and lochs and the occasional monsters in a loch. 23:11.560 --> 23:17.920 But in reality, there are a lot of very innovative businesses that are very successful that are 23:17.920 --> 23:20.160 operating here. 23:20.160 --> 23:26.120 I think that living here actually provides a different dimension to one's life. 23:26.120 --> 23:30.160 And I travel a great deal on business and the company's business. 23:30.160 --> 23:33.760 And when I come back here, this is the most peaceful setting. 23:33.760 --> 23:37.040 And I think in business, it's important to be able to have that period where you can 23:37.040 --> 23:43.880 relax and unwind and throw off some of the frustrations of trying to sell a brilliant 23:43.880 --> 23:47.600 product into a worldwide global software market. 23:47.600 --> 23:56.040 For the Computer Chronicles, I'm Stuart Sheffey in Scotland. 23:56.040 --> 24:00.800 Computer Chronicles is made possible in part by Hewlett Packard Personal Computers, developing 24:00.800 --> 24:08.520 PCs for business. 24:08.520 --> 24:12.800 Additional funding provided by the Software Publishers Association, presenters of the 24:12.800 --> 24:18.400 CODIES, the Annual Excellence in Software Awards. 24:18.400 --> 24:22.200 Videotape copies of all Computer Chronicles shows are available for $32.50. 24:22.200 --> 24:24.440 Please order by show number and topic. 24:24.440 --> 24:28.320 And for more detailed information about the series, guests, and products featured, you 24:28.320 --> 24:31.040 can also order a subscription to the Sheffey Letter. 24:31.040 --> 24:34.880 In each issue, Stuart provides his unique insights and thoughts about the fast-changing 24:34.880 --> 24:37.800 world of personal technology. 24:37.800 --> 24:44.020 Videotapes and the Sheffey Letter can be ordered by calling 1-800-800-9520 or by writing us 24:44.020 --> 25:00.080 at The Computer Chronicles. 26:14.020 --> 26:19.380 Do you own a computer? 26:19.380 --> 26:20.900 Thinking about buying one? 26:20.900 --> 26:23.020 Trying to figure out what software to get? 26:23.020 --> 26:25.060 Trying to cope with PC problems? 26:25.060 --> 26:27.060 Want to decipher the Internet? 26:27.060 --> 26:29.060 Don't make an expensive mistake. 26:29.060 --> 26:34.100 Watch Computer Chronicles each week for up-to-date advice on the latest in personal technology, 26:34.100 --> 26:37.620 computer hardware and software, and a guide to cyberspace. 26:37.620 --> 26:46.500 There is help out there every week on The Computer Chronicles.